


Truth or Dare

by Blissymbolics



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Adults acting like adults, Angst, Comedy, Dialogue Heavy, Drinking, M/M, References to eating disorders, Sex Tapes, Smoking, references to domestic abuse, richie tozier's infidelity kink, yes sex tapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 10:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blissymbolics/pseuds/Blissymbolics
Summary: “Are you a virgin?”“What was the reason for your last breakup?”“What’s the largest age gap you’ve ever had?”“What’s the weirdest sex shit you’ve ever done?”“What’s the last illegal thing you did?”After defeating Pennywise the Losers return to the Townhouse, order takeout, get drunk, and play truth or dare. One by one all their dirty little secrets start to come out.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 38
Kudos: 270





	1. Chapter 1

Twelve hours after emerging from Niebolt, the Losers find themselves in the parlor of the Townhouse, scrolling through their phones, sipping cans of soda, and making abnormally normal smalltalk. They mutually slept the whole day away, passing out the second they unlocked their doors. Now they’re freshly showered and changed, but too tired to do anything more productive than lounge around and ignore all the responsibilities waiting for them out in the real world. The reality of the last forty-eight hours has failed to set in yet, allowing them to pleasantly drift in that stage of apathetic shock, the grace period before the damage really sinks into their skulls.

Richie’s leaning over the bar, running his thumb in circles on the condensation of his Coke can, trying not to think about the fifty-odd voicemails clogging up his inbox. Then his stomach lets out a growl, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten anything since the bagel he grabbed this morning. He scans the room, taking in everyone’s lazy dispositions, all of them strewn across various pieces of furniture, some with their eyes half-closed, others holding their phones too close to their faces like bored teenagers.

“So, anyone hungry?” he asks.

The rest of the Losers look up in his direction, then exchange glances with each other.

“I could eat,” Stan says with a shrug.

“Yeah, me too,” Bill says right before letting out a yawn and stretching out his arms. “Should we order takeout?”

“I’m down,” Richie says, bending his neck till it lets out a pop. “Mike, what’s good around here?”

Mike is sitting on the other end of the bar, toying with the tab on his empty Fanta can. “The only places that really deliver around here are pizza and Chinese.”

Ben lets out a small laugh. “Let’s go with pizza then.”

Before the rest of them can voice their agreement, Eddie speaks up from where he’s draped across the small ornamental couch. “I can’t eat gluten. Or dairy.”

Richie shoots him a dirty glare, which he returns equally.

“I’m guessing Derry pizza isn’t renowned for its allergen-free accommodations,” Richie remarks dryly. He, like all the rest of them, remains skeptical of Eddie’s insistence that eating a crouton will send him to the ER, but they’re all too polite to say anything.

“Honestly, the food at the Jade wasn’t bad,” Ben says. He’s sitting on the floor next to Bev with his laptop open on the coffee table, apparently the only one of them with the motivation to catch up on all the work he’s missed.

“Yeah, apart from the evil hallucinations the food was actually pretty good,” Bill concurs.

“I’m good with Chinese,” Stan adds.

“The egg rolls were pretty decent,” Bev chimes in. “And I could really go for some wonton soup.”

An hour later they have $150 worth of Chinese food laid out on the small coffee table in the center of the room. They pulled back the furniture to make space so they could all crowd around on the carpet. Richie’s room is a suite with a kitchen and enough cutlery and tableware to host a dinner party, so they hauled it all downstairs and only managed to break one dish in the process. Mike drove over to the liquor store to pick up a couple of six packs, which they’ve nearly depleted. Once the conversation inevitably turned to the topic of embarrassing masturbation stories, Richie decided it was time to grab a bottle of whiskey from behind the bar and lay out a row of shots. Then another, and another. There’s now dried rice scattered on the carpet and beer dribbled on the table top. Most of the cartons are empty or getting there, and there’s greasy oil stains dribbled on their shirts.

They’ve all been swapping stories, each more outlandish than the next. Stories of meeting the most batshit people, getting stranded in foreign countries, embarrassing mistakes and fuck-ups, and all the things they dreamed about doing once they finally got out of Derry. And Mike only looks a little bit jealous.

Richie starts walking over to the bar to grab a bottle of tequila, and on the way he comes to the realization that he’s drunker than he thought. It’s cool though. What’s the point in taking out an evil clown if you can’t get completely shit-faced with your friends in the aftermath?

“Hey, Mikey,” Richie calls from behind the bar as he searches through the selection.

“Yeah?”

“Truth or dare?”

The others immediately drop their smaller conversations and turn in Mike’s direction, awaiting his response.

“Are we at that point in the night already?” Mike laughs, good-natured and clearly ready to play along.

Richie nods. “Yeah, and I can’t leave this town without blackmail material on all of you,” he says, pointing a finger around the table.

Mike laughs and takes another sip of his beer. “Well, the last time we played I picked dare and you made me prank call Eddie’s mom and ask what she was wearing, so I’m gonna go with truth.”

The memory seems to hit them all at once and they almost double over laughing as that night from senior year comes back into focus. Even Eddie can’t restrain the smile tugging at his lips.

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Richie says with a maniacal glint in his eye as he starts walking back towards the table with his tequila in tow. “Are you a virgin?”

Stan spits up some of his beer and Bev brings a hand up to her mouth to hold in the chicken she hasn’t finished chewing. Ben buries his eyes in his hand as they all laugh like they’re twelve again.

“What, it’s a legitimate question,” Richie protests, sitting to Mike’s left. “As far as we know you went into the attic after graduation and never came back down.”

“Mike wasn’t even a virgin during high school,” Bill interjects.

“How do you know that?” Richie asks. “Did you guys fuck?”

“He hooked up with Fiona Dowling and never shut up about it,” Bill retaliates, pointing a finger in Mike’s direction, who’s staring down at the noodles on his plate with the awkward smile of someone who’s been unexpectedly thrust into the center of attention.

“Shit, you’re right,” Richie says, crossing his arms in disappointment. “Fuck, I wasted my turn. Okay, I’m modifying it to a general inquiry: what’s the dating scene like in Derry? What’s your Tinder pool like? I’m picturing three single moms and a catfisher with a septum piercing.”

Mike chuckles while poking at the small mounds of food left on his plate. “God, I remember when Derry first got dating apps. Everyone recognized each other. It was like high school all over again. Not as bad as when we first got Facebook. That changed shit. But yeah, I’m single at the moment but I get around. Do you guys remember Hannah Lucas? She was four grades behind you guys so probably not.”

“Hannah… Hannah, Hannah…” Richie mutters to himself, searching through his mental rolodex.

“Wait, wasn’t she Brian Lucas’ little sister?” Stan asks between mouthfuls of broccoli.

Mike nods. “Yeah, that’s her. She left Derry for college then came back for a summer and we really hit it off. She moved after a while, but we had a good thing going. Then I dated a few others here and there. No one you’d know.”

“Try us,” Eddie says with a shrug. “We’re probably only two degrees of separation from everyone in this town.”

“Yeah, I’d personally love a dramatic reading of your little black book,” Bev says teasingly, already on her fourth beer and her cheeks growing redder by the minute.

Mike smiles, both embarrassed and flattered by the attention. Richie takes the opportunity to gather everyone’s empty shot glasses and start pouring them another round.

“Well, you wouldn’t know Shirley Tanner since she moved here in ’04. But what about Maggie Sanborn? She was Tanya Sanborn’s cousin and she visited for a couple summers.”

Richie shakes his head. “Nope, doesn’t ring any bells.”

“What’d she look like?” Ben asks.

“Kind of chubby cheeks, dirty blonde hair, back then she wore these giant hoop earrings.”

Bev’s face seems to light up in recognition. “Wait, did she work at the convenience store on Bradshaw? The one by the barbershop?”

Mike nods. “Yeah, that was her summer gig.”

“That fucking bitch!” Bev shouts out of nowhere, slamming a hand onto the table, causing the liquid in their glasses to leap as they all lean back in surprise.

Bev lets out a huff and curls her fist. “I once gave her a twenty for a pack of gum and she refused to give me change. And said if I complained she’d tell her manager I was shoplifting cigarettes.”

“Were you?” Richie asks, hesitantly.

“No!” Bev shouts in exasperation. “This was after I discovered that cigarette machine in the bowling alley basement. That little bitch.” Her face is pinched tight with rage, an anger none of them have seen since they were kids.

Mike gives a nervous laugh, clearly unsure how to deal with the sudden tension. “She never told me about that. She might not even remember it. If it’s any consolation, we didn’t start dating till she was thirty-five and she definitely grew out of her mean girl phase.”

Bev lets out a huff and reaches for her beer. “Guess that’s something.”

The rest of them exchange a glance, silently debating whether to press the matter further or leave it sitting. Before they can arrive at a consensus, Mike makes the decision for them.

“So, Ben, truth or dare?” he asks cheerily, turning to his right. Richie takes the opportunity to knock back a shot and pass another in Mike’s direction.

Ben shrugs. “Guess I’ll go with truth.”

“Cool. Staying on the topic of dating, what was the reason for your last breakup?” He finishes the question right before eagerly downing the shot Richie pushed his way.

“Hey, that’s a good one,” Richie interjects while passing another over to Ben. “Let me guess, she was a rich girl and you were the strapping farmhand and her daddy said she was too good for you? Did it end with you guys crying in the rain?”

Ben lets out a short laugh before knocking back his tequila, closing his eyes briefly and breathing in the rush. “It _was_ raining actually. But we were in my car. We only dated for six months so it wasn’t that serious.”

Bill laughs. “Damn, you guys remember back in high school when any couple that lasted longer than three months was practically married? Now anything less than a year isn’t even worth telling your parents about.”

“Yeah, it’s wild.” Ben nods. “Honestly, me and her probably shouldn’t have started dating in the first place. We weren’t very compatible.”

“You break her heart?” Mike asks, leaning in like they’re exchanging secrets at a sleepover.

Ben smiles. “Yeah, I guess I did.” He fiddles with his paper napkin, rolling it between his palms while staring down at the food left on his plate. The rest of them are looking at him expectantly, waiting for the meat of the story. Once Ben realizes he’s not getting off the hook, he smiles and reaches for his beer.

“We had a lot of issues, but the one that really got to me was how she acted about my weight. I’ve had some on and off issues with dieting over the years. You know, eating less than I should, sometimes counting calories when I don’t need to. And I’m getting better about it, but she just made such a big deal out of it. Like every time I gained a little weight she’d go on and on about how attractive I was. Or if she thought I wasn’t eating enough she’d put more food on my plate without asking. The thing that really pushed me over the edge was we were out to dinner and she actually congratulated me for finishing my dessert. I’m not sure why that was my breaking point. I’m a grown ass man and she was congratulating me for finishing a slice of cake like I was… I don’t know, some bear storing up weight for the winter. There were other reasons of course, but that’s what sealed it for me.”

That definitely brings the mood down a peg. The rest of them sit there, unsure whether to press further, crack a joke, or simply move on.

“Did you tell her you didn’t like it when she did that?” Bev asks gently.

Ben nods. “I tried, but I’m not very good at confrontation. But it was more that… I think she knew that the compliments were more for her benefit than mine.”

Their facial expressions all collectively morph into something that effectively communicates the abstract concept of ’yikes.’

Eddie exhales through his teeth. “I’m not touching that one,” he says, his face telling a story all its own. “Okay, my turn.”

“Alright,” Ben says, clearly relieved to be moving on. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Guess we have a theme going. Let’s see.” Ben taps his fingers on the side of his glass, humming as he tries to think. “Okay, I’ve got one. What’s the biggest age gap you’ve ever had?”

Eddie’s eyes widen a bit, but it’s too subtle a shift for anyone to notice.

“That’s a good one,” Richie interrupts, oblivious to the hint of panic on Eddie’s face. “But before he answers, we should make guesses like on The Price is Right. I’m guessing thirteen years.”

Stan scoffs. “Thirteen years? For Eddie?”

Eddie unceremoniously flips him off.

“Hey, it’s basic strategy to pick the outliers,” Richie responds in self-defense.

“He’s right,” Bill adds, chewing on a piece of edamame. “It’s also basic strategy to tailgate those outliers, which is why I’m going with twelve.”

“Fuck you.” Richie gives his shoulder a shove.

“I’ll go with five,” Ben chimes in.

Stan: “Three.”

Mike: “One.”

Bev: “Seven.”

“It’s probably like three months or something,” Richie says right before taking a sip of his beer.

Eddie stares at him, pointedly. “When I was twenty-five I slept with a forty-three-year-old woman.”

Instead of doing a spit take, Richie manages to choke down the beer in his mouth, but some of it wanders down the wrong pipe, causing him to cough and wheeze as he tries to get his bearings. The rest of the Losers stare at Eddie in shock, their stunned disbelief gradually shifting into shameless smiles. Eddie stares them down defiantly, daring them to doubt him.

“Damn. Guess Richie wins,” Bill says eventually, more impressed than anything else.

Once Richie manages to properly breathe again, a smile spreads across his face. He feels like a kid again, sitting in a circle in his parents’ basement as they all recount the various vices they managed to achieve by senior year.

“Eighteen years, huh? You had a whole legal adult between the two of you. Hot.”

The rest of the Losers snicker, the serious look on Eddie’s face only making it all the better.

“Wait, I need the full story on this,” Stan says, speaking above the laughter. “How’d you guys meet?”

Eddie crosses his arms in stubborn silence.

“Come on, who’re we gonna tell?” Richie goads him on, so curious he’s already starting to fabricated hypotheses in his head.

Eddie sighs. “Shot first, gossip second.”

Richie happily complies. He pours him a shot and hands it across the table. Without pause Eddie knocks it back, his face contorting and grimacing as the liquor runs down his throat. Then he exhales through his nose and dramatically bangs the shot glass down onto the table like a cowboy in an old western.

“She, um…” He clears his throat. “We met in grad school. She was going back for her masters.”

The rest of them look at each other in confusion, and mild disappointment.

“Oh, that’s not bad at all,” Ben says, obviously puzzled by Eddie’s caginess.

“She asked me to babysit her kids while she and her husband hung out with their friends.”

Bev slaps a hand over her mouth as her eyes go wide. Mike almost chokes on the air that was already in his lungs. Bill brings both hands up to his hair to tug at his greying roots. Eddie just sits there, staring down at his empty shot glass, the entire scene reminiscent of a biblical frontispiece.

“Eddie Kaspbrak, _you_ were the babysitter?” Richie says, an unintentional note of respect lacing his tone.

Eddie gives a solemn nod. “I was the babysitter.”

“Wait,” Stan raises a hand in the air, “so was it a one-time hookup or a full blown affair?”

“Somewhere in the middle?” Eddie answers with a vague tilt of his head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stan presses further.

“Fine, it lasted four months!” Eddie raises his hands in exasperation. “Yeah, I know, cheating is bad marriage is sacred blah blah blah.” He irreverently jerks off the air.

Richie can’t stop smiling. This is officially the greatest night of his life.

“So who initiated it?” Mike asks.

“So Stan, what’s the weirdest sex shit you’ve ever done?” Eddie asks, ignoring Mike entirely.

Richie lets out a laugh from the rapid segue, and the rest of them look at Eddie in disappointment for depriving them of their precious gossip.

“What?!” Eddie shouts. “I’m diverting.”

“Can’t I pick dare?” Stan asks, although he seems pretty indifferent to the question.

“If you pick dare I’ll make you eat Richie’s ass.”

“Shit, don’t tease me like that,” Richie replies, drunk enough to let his guard down.

Stan shrugs. “You’re going to be disappointed. I’m actually really boring.”

Eddie huffs. “Of course you are. But there’s gotta be something. There’s no way all of us got through childhood without some weird sex shit catching up with us.”

“Sorry, I think that might be a you problem,” Richie deadpans, and Eddie responds with a look that clearly communicates ’sit and spin.’

Stan hums to himself, thinking. “Um… I guess the weirdest stuff we did was when we were trying to get pregnant. It was weird, but also really boring. Like you’ve only got three positions, then you’re supposed to stay inside for twenty minutes after you’re done. And it’s awkward and… moist and you get muscle cramps and just have to laugh about it. Then she’d have to stay on her back and put her legs up and there were all these weird rituals that are supposed to raise your chances from like 15% to 15.3%. Then there’s all the lifestyle changes to go with it. Eating all the right food, avoiding chemicals, wearing the right clothes. Anyway, we only did all that for about three months before getting sick of it and deciding that if it was meant to happen then it’d happen.” He stops to take a sip of his beer. “It didn’t.”

They all look down at the table, unsure how to respond. They really should have been prepared for this. Sure, they had plenty of dirty little secrets as kids, but their issues weren’t quite as developed. Truth or dare might never get old, but they sure as hell did.

“Man, sorry dude,” Richie says awkwardly while trying to fold his napkin into a very janky paper crane, slightly proud of himself for offering up something more dignified than ‘condolences to your dick.’

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Mike adds. “I didn’t tell you guys this since the amnesia kind of took precedence, but I think Derry is the reason why we’re all infertile.”

“We’re infertile?!” Eddie shouts, beating the rest of them to it.

“Wow, could’ve used some more build-up there,” Richie remarks dryly, still fiddling with the lopsided wings of his paper bird.

“You’re serious?” Bill almost shouts. “That’s an actual side effect? Of what exactly?”

Mike shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know. But did anyone else notice it?”

Richie, Mike, Ben, and Stan turn towards the three married members of the party who haven’t chimed in yet.

Bill scratches the stubble on his cheek. “Me and Audra talked about having kids, but she kept getting cast in projects right after another, so we never had a window.”

“We never tried for kids,” Bev answers bluntly.

Eddie shakes his head. “Us neither.”

“So I’m the only one?” Stan asks.

Bev picks at her nails. “I was always too busy. I travel a lot for work.”

“Wow, you guys have actual excuses,” Eddie says. “I just hate kids.”

Richie raises a hand in the air. “Wait, if we’re infertile then whose child support have I been paying?”

Six sets of eyes snap in his direction, their expressions horrified, like an audience on the Jerry Springer Show. Richie keeps them on the hook a second longer before smiling and dropping the act. “Just fucking with you guys.”

The exasperation that spreads across their faces is priceless. Richie takes advantage of the momentary lapse in conversation to pour a shot and hand it over to Stan.

“But shit, dude, sorry you had to keep your limp dick in there for nothing.”

Stan accepts the shot, but maintains impressive eye contact while swallowing it down.

“If it’s any consolation,” Mike interjects, “all the side effects should be gone now. So if there aren’t any other complications you should be able to get pregnant now.”

“Hey, mazel tov!” Richie cheers, raising his empty beer can. “You should call and tell her.”

“Tell her what? ‘Hey, Patty, I just helped defeat an evil space clown so now I’m good to knock you up?’”

“Perfect,” Richie says followed by a click of his tongue.

Mike nods. “Yeah, I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t held a baby in probably five years. And if I’m down in Florida it’s an easy drive up to Atlanta. No pressure, but if you do have kids I’ll spoil them rotten.”

Bill lets out a small laugh. “Can you imagine one baby between the seven of us?”

“They’ll be so spoiled. I can’t wait,” Bev says with a smile.

Stan gives an awkward laugh, the tequila seeming to be working its magic. “I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated. But hey, I answered Eddie’s question so moving on. Bev, truth or dare?”

Bev drums her fingers against the tabletop. “Um… truth.”

“What’s the last illegal thing you did?” Stan asks, the question obviously pre-prepared.

“Hm, good one.” Mike nods in approval.

Bev blows out a stream of air, pushing aside a lock of hair that was falling into her eyes. “Technically trespassing since my old apartment building on Main was actually abandoned.”

“Last illegal thing you did before Derry,” Richie butts in. “Crime here doesn’t count. If it did then I’d be a murderer. How fucked up would that be?” He laughs, and it’s just a little too unhinged.

Bev seems to be in the same headspace because she returns his off-kilter laugh with almost the exact same cadence. “Guess I can’t count smoking indoors then either.” She brings a hand up to her chin, thinking. “Does it count as a crime if it was self-defense?”

The rest of the Losers exchange glances, obviously not expecting that response. Richie at least figured it’d be something more in line with jaywalking or money laundering. He has no clue what goes on in the fashion district.

“What were the circumstances?” Ben asks cautiously.

“I smashed a metal picture frame into my husband’s face.”

Once again, all their jaws drop in mutual shock. Serves them right for thinking this would just be a fun game full of hijinks and petty secrets.

“Damn, is he like, still in commission?” Richie asks, wondering if he might not be the only murderer at the table after all.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Bev replies, brushing it off as if it were no big deal. “Fine enough to leave me over twenty voicemails threatening to sue.”

“Holy shit, are you okay?” Stan asks, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She shrugs off his hand, frustration starting to creep into her voice. “I’ll deal with it once we leave. But Richie’s right, this is a neutrality zone. The rest of the world doesn’t exist here.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Richie says while pouring her a well-earned shot. “I’m pretty sure half the people in Derry are already in witness protection anyway.”

He passes the glass in her direction and she downs it like a champ, her face crinkling no more than if she ate a speck of wasabi.

“Yeah, Tom’s a real piece of work.” She examines the light patterns reflecting off the glass in her hand. “But I’ll figure it out later. Your turn, Bill. Truth or dare?”

“Um truth,” he replies, clearly not the only one experiencing whiplash from all these emotional segues.

Bev presses the shot glass against her chin and looks up at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the decorative moulding. “Are you going to write a book about all this?” she asks.

Bill laughs. “I mean, I have to, right?”

“No one’s holding a gun to your head,” Eddie remarks, “but yeah, you have to.”

“More importantly, what minor details will you change to give us all cover?” Stan asks.

“Yeah, can we pick our own names?” Richie follows up.

“No,” Bill replies, definitively.

“Come on, your names suck ass,” Richie whines. “What was the name of the guy in your last movie? Reggie Plintock?”

Mike laughs under his breath. “Yeah, Bill, seeing how you treat your protagonists I’m not sure if I trust you.”

“You’re casting Audra as Bev, right?” Ben chimes in. Richie’s the only one to notice that he’s been uncharacteristically quiet ever since his turn.

The question itself seems to strike a nerve. It’s subtle, but within less than a second Bill’s expression shifts from good-natured humor to clear discomfort.

“I don’t control the casting,” he replies, his voice strangely monotone.

“It’s tailor-made though,” Stan adds, not noticing the shift in his mood. “The two of them could be sisters.”

Something seems to cross Bev’s face as well. She looks unsettled, as if she just unlocked a memory she doesn’t much like.

“Yeah, we could,” she says, suddenly seeming uncomfortable sitting within two inches of Bill.

“Okay, Richie, truth or dare?” Bill asks enthusiastically, eager to move the conversation right along.

Richie can see the tension hanging between the two of them, but he has enough braincells left to know when to leave well enough alone.

“Dare.”

Bill gives a small laugh. “I thought we had a theme going.”

Richie shrugs. “I’m breaking rank. Dare.”

“Fuck, I didn’t think of anything.” Bill crosses his arms. “Um… let’s see. Oh, I know! Tweet about how much you liked the ending of my last book.”

The group seems intent on whittling Bill’s self-esteem down to a husk because on cue they all erupt into a round of laughter, except for Richie, who just lets out a melodramatic groan.

“Dude, I haven’t even read that shit and I know I won’t like it.”

“Too bad, that’s the dare. I’m willing to retract it if you’ll settle for truth.”

Richie rolls his eyes and fishes his phone out of his pocket.

“Fine.” He opens Twitter and begins typing. “‘I loved the ending of Bill Denbrough’s latest novel. His endings are always the best. I wish the whole book was just the ending. You know, when it ends.’ Tweet.” He finishes with a self-satisfied smirk, but Bill’s expression is less than amused.

“Relax, no one will care anyway. No one who reads books follows me.”

“I follow you,” Bill replies dryly.

“Shit, seriously? Why?”

“It’s entertaining watching you self-destruct every other week. Seriously, why do you keep posting edgy jokes knowing that you’re going to get ratio’d? It looks exhausting.”

“I like riling people up,” he replies while pouring himself another shot.

“Do you like death threats too? I have a Twitter, you know what I use it for? Tour dates, good reviews, and launch info, that’s it.”

“Hey, if you have an app that can instantly cause millions of people around the world to collectively clench their assholes why wouldn’t you use it to its full potential?”

“So do you really just tweet shit knowing it’s going to trend for all the wrong reasons then turn off your phone and not think about it?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Besides, it’s good to set expectations. If I say stupid shit all the time it becomes routine. That way when I inevitably fuck up for real no one will think anything of it. At this point I’m 100% cancel proof.”

“So it’s a business strategy?”

“More or less.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Richie Tozier?!”

All seven of them nearly jump out of their skin. Their heads automatically turn to see a woman standing in the archway. She looks about their age, brown hair pulled up into a bun, unflattering jeans, heavy mascara, and a purple hoodie.

“Yes?” Richie answers nervously, getting the sense that he might be in trouble.

“Melanie Carlisle,” the woman says, pointing at her chest. “We went to school together. I sat next to you in chem class.”

Richie tries to think; was chemistry tenth or eleventh grade? Was she the girl who wore tons of bracelets? The one always carrying her oboe case? He doesn’t want to stare at her face for too long since that’s weird, but he genuinely has no fucking clue who she is.

“Oh yeah, Melanie, of course,” he replies, his smile showing a bit too much teeth.

“What are you doing back in Derry?” she asks, as if they were genuinely old friends and not just distant classmates who were barely on speaking terms.

“Just here for a little reunion,” he answers, gesturing to the six other people around the table, all of whom, sans Mike, also went to high school with her, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“Sorry for bothering you all, but my folks own the place. Dad had a bit of an accident the other night and wound up in the ER.”

“Oh no, is he alright?” Richie asks, since apparently he’s the only one of them involved in this conversation.

“Yeah, he’s fine. Just some back trouble. He’s home now resting. Sorry to abandon you all like that. Do you need any housekeeping?”

“Nope,” Richie answers so fast it’s definitely suspicious. They still haven’t figured out how the hell they’re going to explain the broken window in Eddie’s bathroom. They also need to figure out how to scrub the bloodstains out of the hallway carpet, and toss and burn their bloodstained clothing. They really should have done all that as soon as they got back, but hey, they were lazy, and neutralizing the crime scene seemed like a lower priority than napping.

“I think we’ll just wait till we check out,” he says, forced and awkward. All the other Losers have their heads bowed, trying to blend into the scenery.

“That’s fine,” Melanie replies with a wave of her hand, evidently none the wiser. “You know, I told all my friends out of town that I went to school with you. Could I maybe get a picture just to show them?”

Oh, so that’s what this is about. She’s a fan. Richie turns towards Bill just to give him a shit-eating grin.

“Sure, of course.”

“Awesome.” She walks over and kneels by his side, still ignoring her five other former classmates who might as well not be there. Richie obediently leans in while she takes the picture. He definitely doesn’t look his best, but hey, it’s the memory that counts.

“Hey, would you mind not posting that online for a while?” he asks. “I’m kind of on vacation and trying to keep a low profile.”

“Yes, of course,” she replies, apparently willing to accommodate his every need. “By the way, my husband and I loved your last special.”

“Wow, glad to hear it,” he says, turning back to Bill, who looks ready to deoculate him with his chopsticks.

“Well, I’ll let you folks get back to your dinner. Enjoy your night.” She waves in the general direction of the table and begins walking towards the door, her bag slung over her shoulder.

“Wait, Melanie,” Bev calls out of nowhere.

Melanie stops in the archway and turns around. “Yeah?”

She’s staring directly at Bev, but there doesn’t seem to be any recognition in her eyes. Richie’s gaze darts between the two of them, wondering why the hell Bev is trying to keep her around.

“Beverly Marsh,” Bev says, pointing at herself. “We were in school together too.”

Melanie pauses a moment, apparently going through the exact same mental process that Richie did a minute earlier.

“Oh, Beverly, of course I remember you,” she says in a tone that makes it difficult to tell whether or not she’s telling the truth.

“Yeah, so… how’ve you been?” Bev asks. The rest of them are staring at her, wondering what in the hell motivated her to initiate this conversation.

“Not bad, same old same old. My son just started eighth grade and I’ve got another in sixth. What about you? You have kids?”

All the men at the table instinctively recoil, arching their backs and staring down like a group of drunks trying to ignore a bar fight.

Bev’s mouth twitches, her posture tense.

“No,” she answers with a smile.

“Oh, that’s alright. Married?”

Richie wants to disintegrate into the carpet.

“Yes,” she replies with the same faux Stepford cheer.

“What happened to your ring then?”

Bev’s expression immediately flattens as she looks down at her left hand. Her ring is still somewhere in Manhattan, but the faint tan line remains.

“We don’t wear rings,” she says, bringing her hand down into her lap.

There’s a beat of silence. If this were a reality TV show Richie would be snacking on popcorn, but being in the middle of it is another matter entirely.

“I’m a fashion designer now,” Bev says, her tone plastic and forced, the type of dialect one reserves for high school reunions.

“Wow, good for you. I remember you were always making your own clothes, patching together whatever you could find lying around. It was real cute. Well, nice to see you again.”

With that she turns around and walks toward the door with nothing more than a small wave over her shoulder. They all sit there in silence, listening to the front door open and fall shut. The tension is stiff and brutal. They can hear the steam pipes creaking in the walls.

Suddenly Richie’s face lights up. “Oh wait, I remember her now. That bitch used to cheat off my tests.”

Bev looks ready to snap the table in half.

“I need a smoke,” she says, already standing up and dusting the crumbs off her jeans.

“I’ll join you,” Richie says, feeling like he could really use one too.


	2. Chapter 2

Richie follows Bev down the hallway to the back door. She shoves it open with more force than necessary, and the screen door almost slams into his face. She stomps across the back porch, her low heels softly clacking against the decrepit wood. She walks down the stairs and into the parking lot, then stops maybe thirty feet from the Townhouse, her fists gripped tight. Richie stares at the back of her head, his hands shoved in his pockets. Eventually he starts approaching her, but still hangs back a solid ten feet.

She reaches into her jacket pocket and extracts her pack of cigarettes. She pulls one out and lights it up, inhaling and blowing upwards to curtail the gentle wind drifting in their direction. Richie follows suit, realizing they smoke the same brand. It’s the one they both preferred as kids.

“Spare a light?” he asks, carefully drawing closer.

Bev turns to face him, trying to transform her grimace into a smile. “Did you ever quit?” she asks, raising her lighter to his mouth.

“On and off. You?” He leans into the flame.

“Tom hates it when I smoke,” she says right before putting her lighter back in her pocket and raising her cigarette to her mouth. Richie watches her blow a perfect stream up into the night sky.

They stand there together for a while, the yellow street lights casting shadows against the fence and attracting small swarms of bugs that should probably be dead by this time of year. The street is quiet, the air crisp, the stars actually visible, though not as much as Richie would like. The orange tips of their cigarettes are a nice contrast against the black asphalt, and Richie suddenly remembers being little and blowing steam into the winter air and pretending it was smoke.

“Sorry you got tangled up with him,” Richie says after a minute or two of silence. He noticed the bruises on Bev’s arms, but didn’t want to say anything, part of him holding out hope that she acquired them sometime after getting to Derry.

“It’s my fault,” Bev says, staring out at the tree line.

“No it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is,” she says decisively, then lets out a small laugh.

Richie’s not sure how to respond to that. At least not without making the situation worse. He really hopes she’s not trapped in some dangerous spiral of self-blame. He really doesn’t have the therapy credentials to deal with a situation like that.

“I started dating Tom for the connections,” she says, her voice straightforward and factual. “And I got them. And even when he started treating me like shit I stayed with him because…” She sighs, her face twisting with anger that has no place to go. “Because there were all these smug little bitches in my head telling me I was trash. So I said, fuck you, I’m going to design dresses for Michelle Obama. And if I end up in the ER with a broken wrist, fine.”

She almost spits out the last word. Her eyes are glossy, reflecting small squares of yellow light. She wipes the back of her hand over her eyes, stymying the tears before they can fall.

“But success doesn’t mean anything,” she continues. “I’m more miserable now than I’d be without it. Those girls that live in my head… I don’t live in any of theirs. I stayed with him just to feel superior to the great people of Derry fucking Maine.” Her voice is louder than normal, as if she were talking to the town itself.

Richie doesn’t know what to say to all that. Sure, he gets it. A good portion of his career has been fueled by spite. There are people in the comedy scene he can’t fucking stand who he half-jokingly considers his rivals, but he’s never put himself through hell and back just to one up them. But he gets it. Spite can make you do irrational shit.

“So are you leaving him, or…?” His voice trails off. He’s not sure what other option he could suggest in good conscience.

Bev sighs. “Yeah, I have to.” She looks up at the sky, her right heel restlessly tapping against the pavement, like she wants to stomp something as hard as she can.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” she says, followed by a frustrated groan, but with a hint of humor, as if this were no more serious than retaking the SAT.

Richie reaches an arm around her shoulder, feeling like there’s not much else he can do.

“You don’t have to think about it tonight. If you don’t want.”

She sighs and leans into his chest, pressing her forehead against his shoulder.

“I really don’t want to.”

He rubs his hand up and down her arm. “Then let's have another drink, bully our friends, and not check our emails.”

Bev lets out a short laugh, but there’s a catch at the end, as if she were on the verge of crying.

“I’d like that,” she says, her voice cracking. Richie brings his hand up to the back her head, softly holding it in place.

“For what it’s worth, if either you or Tom has to go down, you’ll definitely come out on top. You’re fucking good at what you do. You milked him for all he’s worth and you don’t need him anymore.”

Bev laughs. “Thanks.”

She pulls away, taking a deep breath and wiping the tears from her eyes. She takes another drag, her lips naturally finding the perfect shape to create a steady stream of smoke so aesthetically pleasing it belongs in a black and white film. She always made it look so graceful. No wonder she got Richie hooked.

“I think I’ll take you up on that drink,” she finally says once she’s reached the filter.

“Let me hook you up.” He puts his arm back around her shoulder and turns her towards the house, ready to lead them back inside.

Just then the backdoor opens and they see Stan emerge onto the porch. He has his phone pressed to his ear, his body language curled in tight, his gaze fixed on his feet. Richie and Bev watch him meander around the deck, too far away to hear anything of substance. Once it looks like the conversation is winding down they begin walking closer, catching just the tail end of the call.

“Yeah, I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you too. Bye.” Stan hangs up, then lets out a sigh and leans over the railing.

“Trouble in paradise?” Richie asks, climbing the steps up to the porch.

Stan gives a small laugh as he puts his phone back in his pocket. “She’s actually being remarkably understanding.”

“What’s your alibi?” Richie asks.

“Last minute reunion. I told her I missed the email you guys sent two months ago.”

“Smart. So what was that all about?” Richie knows he has no right to pry, but his appetite for gossip has always been insatiable, and it’s gotten him into trouble a fair number of times.

Stan sighs. “It’s unrelated.”

“None of our business?” Bev asks.

Stan stares out at the parking lot, a sudden breeze ruffling his curls. He reaches up to rub his eyes beneath his glasses.

“We’re supposed to be meeting with an adoption agency on Monday,” he finally replies. “Patty wants to know if we should reschedule.”

“Shit, congrats,” Richie says, reaching up to clap him on the back.

“It’s just an information session. Nothing serious.”

“Still, that’s a big step. Are you going to cancel now that you know your yogurt’s cultured again?”

Bev lets out an involuntary snort while Stan just responds with a dirty look.

“Shit, what’d I say?” Richie laughs, taking one last pull of his cigarette before dropping it to the deck and crushing it with his foot.

Stan remains pensive. He crosses his arms and bites at his inner cheek. It’s weird, Richie thought he’d be in a much better mood considering that Mike just gave him the best news he’s likely to receive in a while. What gives?

“I don’t think I want kids,” Stan whispers, like it’s a dirty secret. “I don’t think I ever wanted them.”

Richie and Bev share a look, then turn back to Stan.

“I mean, that’s understandable. Considering…” Richie gestures to the town around them, the sentiment clear.

Stan brings his hands up to tug at the roots of his hair. “There was always something in the back of my head. This… crushing dread. I’ve had nightmares about kids dying for as long as I can remember. But hey, everyone’s scared of having kids. I thought it was normal. I figured once I had a kid everything would be great. And if it wasn’t, then that was my shit, and I’d deal with it.”

Richie nods. “Ah yes, the tried and true method of kids first, therapy later.”

Stan gives a soft laugh, obviously just to humor him.

“I can’t have a kid now. It’ll fuck me up. And I’ll fuck them up. But we’ve been trying to have kids for eight years. I can’t just change my mind now.”

“It sounds like you can and just did,” Bev offers, her hands balled in the pockets of her jacket.

Stan sighs. “Patty wants to be a mother so bad. I married her knowing she’d want kids. I can’t bail like this. She’ll hate me for it.”

Richie shrugs. “Afraid I can’t help you there, buddy.”

“Hey,” Bev follows up, “neutrality zone, remember? Real life doesn’t start till we leave this town.”

Stan gives a small nod. “Yeah, guess that’s all I can do.”

The three of them file back inside. The house is powered by old radiators, and the heat is cranked up higher than it needs to be, so they’re greeted by a gust of warm air that raises a film of sweat beneath their clothes. They hear the others conversing loudly in the parlor, Eddie’s voice in particular rising above the rest.

“Jesus Christ, I wasn’t her fucking sub!” he shouts. “It was so normal it’s boring.”

They turn the corner to see Eddie sitting there gesticulating wildly, his face red with exasperation.

“We’re interrogating Eddie about his older girlfriend,” Mike fills them in with a cheeky smile.

“Do you have her Facebook?” Bill asks. “Can we see a picture?”

“Fucking no.”

“Did her husband ever find out?” Mike asks.

“No.”

“Scale of one to ten, how good was the sex?” Richie chimes in.

Before Eddie can respond with a witty retort, they all stop as they hear the distinct sound of vomiting from upstairs. All their eyes dart to the ceiling, the conservation stopped dead in its tracks. They didn’t realize noise travelled so easily between the floors. There’s another faint round of retching before it stops, leaving them all speechless and perturbed.

“That’s Ben’s room, right?” Stan asks, although he seems to already know.

Richie looks down at Ben’s empty seat at the table, and the plate that’s still half-full.

“He seemed fine when he left,” Bill says, still staring at the chandelier.

“You think he drank too much?” Mike suggests.

“He only had two beers and that shot of tequila,” Bev adds.

“God, it’s the food,” Eddie says with a resigned sort of panic. “It’s definitely the food.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Eds, I know you’re a master of catastrophizing, but even you know food poisoning doesn’t work that quick.”

If that gives Eddie any peace of mind it doesn’t show on his face.

“Maybe he’s allergic to something,” Mike offers.

Just then they hear another round of heaving, all of them coiling in discomfort and trying to tune it out, their stomachs flipping despite their best efforts.

“Hey,” Eddie starts, “do you think he…?”

“Think he what?” Bev asks after he trails off.

Eddie brings a hand up to his mouth and mimes sticking a finger down his throat.

All of them are suddenly on the same page, their expressions turning weary.

“That might fit his MO,” Richie says. “Mister ‘don’t compliment me for gaining weight.’”

Bev lets out a sigh. “I should check on him.” She turns in the direction of the stairs and starts walking up before anyone can stop her.

“Compliment his abs,” Richie calls after her. “See if that cheers him up.”

The rest of them shoot him looks conveying that they are not amused in the slightest.

“He’s probably just sick,” Stan says.

Mike nods. “Yeah, probably.”

They all stare down at the table, their appetites thoroughly shot. They look at the greasy dregs of the plastic to-go containers and the vegetable remnants that have turned brown with exposure. The bits of fat and gristle they pulled off the meat, the stained paper cartons, and the single fruit fly buzzing around the sweet and sour sauce. It’s making them all nauseous.

“Should we clean up?” Mike suggests.

Richie nods. “Yeah, let me go look for a trash bag or something.”

He turns into the hall and walks over to the narrow closet he saw by the backdoor. He twists the loose antique knob and gives it a tug, the swollen wood sticking for a moment before opening freely. It’s hard to believe that not twenty-four hours ago he was standing in front of an almost identical door marked ‘very scary,’ which certainly lived up to its label. It’s funny how at this very moment he’s not scared in the slightest. Compartmentalization is one hell of a bitch.

He finds a roll of trash bags and tugs one off. There’s also some generic cleaning supplies, which maybe they can borrow to clean up all the dried blood upstairs. Once they find the energy.

“Hey,” Bill says while tossing some empty cartons into the bag. “Now that Bev’s gone, there’s something I wanted to tell you guys.”

They all turn in his direction, and he seems to shrivel under the attention, even though he’s the one who called for it. He clears his throat, his cheeks going a bit red.

“Earlier, between our various crises, me and Bev kissed in the hall.”

The rest of them look at each other, not exactly surprised by the news, but unsure how to react.

“Congrats?” Richie offers. Based on the look on Bill’s face, it doesn’t seem like something he’s especially proud of.

“Wait, are you jealous of Ben?” Stan asks, not in an accusatory tone. More in the line of pity.

Bill shakes his head. “No, not at all. And that’s the thing.” He sits down on the couch, letting the garbage bag hang by his side. “I’m starting to realize something. For my whole life there was this girl in my head. This perfect, beautiful, complicated girl. And I wrote about her and tried to date her, and Audra’s the closest thing I could find like her. And I just realized that this entire time I was chasing Bev. Or at least how I thought of Bev twenty-seven years ago. I’ve been chasing her my whole life. Then I finally kissed her, and… I didn’t feel anything.”

“So you’re just learning now that perfect people don’t exist?” Richie asks sarcastically. “Is that the lesson here?”

“The point is I married Audra because she reminded me of Bev. And not even the real Bev. I married the fucking shadow of a girl I had a crush on in middle school.” Bill laughs, the absurdity of the whole situation crashing down around him.

“That’s some real mid-life crisis shit, dude,” Richie remarks dryly. “So… you gonna do anything about it?”

Bill sighs and leans back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”

The four of them stand there in tense silence, wondering what advice they could possibly offer. Stan ends up being the one to finally take the reins.

“We’ve had a weird couple days,” he says, sympathy in his tone. “You should probably sleep on it. Or sleep on it for a couple months. Don’t do anything impulsive.”

Bill nods. “Yeah, good idea.” He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. “What a mess,” he sighs.

“You said it,” Richie concurs, staring down at the carpet and wondering how they’ll clean out the beer stains.

The five of them spend another fifteen minutes cleaning up, realizing they were more careless than they should have been. Stan goes back to the supply closet to pull out the antique vacuum cleaner that looks like it should run on steam, and uses it to suck up all the rice nestled in the carpet. Richie has agreed to wash all the dishes up in his suite, his one good deed of the night.

Eddie’s going to be staying with him tonight since Richie’s room is the only one with double queens. When he envisioned getting Eddie into his bedroom this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he supposes he should just appreciate the company. But before getting settled for the night, he returns to the back porch to sit on the old wooden bench and smoke another cigarette. He’s been on the wagon for seven months now, but if there’s anything that merits a relapse, it’s Derry.

It’s almost eleven when Mike steps out onto the back porch. He walks straight ahead, makes it to the first step, before catching sight of Richie and stopping in place.

“Headed back to the attic?” Richie asks.

“Yeah, that’s the plan,” he replies, still loitering on the top step. “Hey, can I bum one of those?” he asks, walking closer, looking comically tall from Richie’s viewpoint on the low bench.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Richie says, reaching into his pocket and extracting the near-empty pack, flipping the lid and offering it up.

“I don’t,” Mike counters, right before reaching inside.

Richie smiles as Mike takes a seat by his side, extending his arm to give him a light. Mike lets out a stilted cough. He obviously hasn’t done this in a while.

“Fun night,” he remarks, examining the cigarette as it smolders between his fingers.

“The best,” Richie returns dryly.

It’s gotten colder, but the temperature’s still nice. It’s been a long time since Richie’s been able to just sit outside like this, just sit and think – reassess where his life is, what he wants to do, what the hell is supposed to come next.

“You have anyone?” Mike asks. “Out in the real world?”

Richie smiles. “Can’t say I do.”

He takes one last drag before reaching the filter and twisting it onto the armrest of the bench, the wood so worn and pockmarked that it won’t make a difference. The small embers briefly skirt and dance before fizzling out. He considers lighting another, but he already promised himself he wouldn’t buy a second pack, so he should probably make this one last at least until tomorrow. He’ll quit once he’s past the city limits. That’s a fair resolution.

“There’s something I wanted to tell you guys earlier,” Mike says. “But I chickened out.”

“You’re a virgin after all?”

Mike gives an amused huff. “Not quite.” He takes another drag, the hesitation only inciting Richie’s curiosity. His gaze is downcast, his expression making him look older than he did in the warm light of the parlor.

“Hannah Lucas and I didn’t just date. We were married. For six years.”

Richie looks at him, not sure how to react. It’s hardly the sexiest secret, or the most shocking, but it really hits him just how much time has passed. How they’ve all lived multiple lives in the interim. Versions of the themselves that they’ll never get to know.

“Dare I ask what happened?”

Mike sighs and looks out at the parking lot. “She wanted to leave Derry, and I couldn’t.”

Richie nods. Sometimes these things really are that simple.

“At first I told her I needed to stay in Derry to take care of my grandfather, but after he died I had no excuse.” He taps his cigarette over the arm of the bench, the ash drifting down to the wooden planks. “She was desperate to get out. She got a degree in journalism and wasted it down at the Derry Chronicle writing about little league games and church fundraisers. But I couldn’t tell her why I needed to stay, so in her eyes, it felt like I was choosing this town over her.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s like choosing raccoon piss over gatorade.”

Mike chuckles, his face starting to get some of its old shine back. “She only planned on coming back to Derry for a summer to see her family. And she wound up stuck here for eight years. I mean, she’s fine now. She’s working for a paper in Portland. She seems happy. But that’s actually how I found out about the infertility thing.”

“Wait, you actually tried having a baby? In Derry fucking Maine?”

Mike laughs. “Yeah. Doesn’t get much stupider than that.”

“Were you planning on shipping the kid off to boarding school or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He scrubs a hand down his face, his two-day stubble beginning to cast a shadow over his jawline. “I knew it was risky, but… I was stuck here. I maxed out my career by twenty-six, I was stuck doing the same shit every day, and the people around here, well, you know how they are. So yeah, I wanted a family. I figured once the time came I’d find an excuse to send Hannah and the kids out of town for a while. But it’s probably for the best that we never made it that far.”

Richie nods solemnly, only now starting to realize how much Mike sacrificed, not just for them, but for all the kids who would have died had he jumped ship, and all the kids in the next cycle, on and on for who knows how long.

“Did you ever think about telling her the truth?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think she’d believe me. And even if she did, I didn’t want to be that asshole to tell her that monsters are real.”

Richie nods, not sure what else to say. It’s funny, one day you leave your hometown, next you come back and all your friends are different people with thousands of days clogging up the interim. They’ve definitely gathered some scars, but who can say whether or not their skin is any thicker.

“Well, now that it’s over, have you thought about looking her up?”

Mike gives a short laugh. “I’m afraid that ship has sailed. It’s fine though. It’s old history now.”

Richie digs his hands into his pockets, slouching back against the bench. “Well, now you can get out of here. You’ve had a dating pool of four people for the last twenty-seven years. Get married again, have those kids. Or have the kids without getting married, whatever you want. The world’s your oyster.”

Mike nods. “Yeah, guess it is.” He twists his cigarette onto the armrest, seeming more relaxed than when he first took his seat.

They sit in silence a while longer, listening to the crickets and the occasional rev of an engine along the road. It’s peaceful, and nostalgic.

“I missed you guys,” Mike says.

“Ditto.”

“No, seriously. Thank you for coming back.”

Richie gives him a smile, then a pat on the shoulder before standing up and heading back inside.


	3. Chapter 3

“So what’s the deal with you and Myra?” Richie asks, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

“I don’t fucking know,” Eddie groans. “It’s one of those things where I know I have to leave, but I just don’t want to deal with it.”

“So wait, you, Mike, Bev, and maybe Bill will all be in the divorcees club? Damn, aren’t we just a regular royal family.”

Eddie laughs, the short breathy kind that only adults use.

They’re sitting at the small table in Richie’s room: a rickety ostentatious piece of furniture with legs that have left visible scratches along the floorboards. They made the dishes a team effort: Richie washing and Eddie drying, even though their bodies were too big to comfortably fit in the small alcove that holds the kitchen sink.

Richie grabbed another bottle of whiskey before heading upstairs, determined not to fall asleep sober. After getting back to his room, he pulled down two green crystal tumblers from the cabinet and poured Eddie a glass without asking, feeling weird about drinking alone. Then they changed into their sleep clothes, awkwardly taking turns in the bathroom, mutually debating whether or not it would be appropriate to change out in the open. It’s past midnight now, but neither of them are especially tired, considering that they slept until four in the afternoon.

Eddie takes another sip, trying to suppress the involuntary cringe that overcomes his expression. It’s cute; it’s the same face he made when they were kids.

“I’m surprised you don’t have at least one divorce under your belt,” Eddie says. “You’re probably the only washed up comedian in the U.S. without one on your Wikipedia page.”

“There’s plenty of other shit up there to make up for it. I think my Personal Life section is longer than my Career section.”

Eddie gives him a half-smile, then turns to stare out the drafty window. The view isn’t great: just some old rooftops and the three-quarter moon barely visible behind the clouds.

“Why do you do that shit?” Eddie asks.

“Do what?”

“Dumb shit knowing that everyone’s going to jump on it. I follow you on Twitter too, y’know.”

Richie smiles, hiding his petty embarrassment. “Damn, didn’t realize I had such a fan club.”

“It’s exhausting,” Eddie groans. “Like clockwork you tweet some dumb shit, then I have to read everyone’s hot takes for two hours, wash, rinse, repeat. I know it’s not a business strategy because no publicist would be stupid enough to endorse that shit.”

Richie shrugs. “Maybe I just have shit impulse control.” He sips his whiskey, trying to hide his annoyance that Eddie is wasting the night harping on something so trivial.

“It’s just like when you were a kid. When you’d just shout whatever random shit came into your head trying to get attention.”

Richie clenches his teeth, his annoyance spiking into frustration, suddenly feeling like he could squeeze the glass in his hand until it breaks.

“Well, you know what?” he almost shouts. “They’ll hate me no matter what. Any celebrity who spews that shit about how their followers aren’t their fans but their family is full of horseshit and every time trying to sell you something. People want to hate you. I could be their perfect little John Mulaney knock-off and they still wouldn’t give a shit about me. I could livestream my suicide and they’d thank me for the entertainment. None of them care about me. Not a single fucking one.”

He’s nearly out of breath by the time he finishes. He can hear his heart pumping in his ears. He clenches his mouth shut, kicking himself for letting his dick hang out like that. Stupid piece of shit. Fucking worthless waste of space.

Eddie’s still looking at him, seemingly unfazed. “You’ve got issues. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Whatever, cougar bait.”

“Jesus Christ, that was one fucking time.”

“So you never dated any other older women?”

Eddie goes quiet for a moment, clearly peeved at the question. “Sure, a few, but all in the five to ten year range.”

“You date five to ten year olds? That’s messed up.”

“Very funny. Why don’t you tweet that and jerk off on the discourse.”

Richie actually cracks a smile at that, and Eddie does as well, despite his best efforts. Richie leans back in his chair, the legs creaking like the hinge of a door. It might just be the liquor, but Eddie looks unbearably sweet in the low light, his ever-changing expressions more pronounced in his half-drunk state.

Richie wishes he could kiss him. Even if they part ways tomorrow and never discuss it again, it’d be nice to take advantage of this neutrality zone in every way they can.

Richie takes another sip of his drink, years of practice making the whiskey no less palatable than orange juice. “You said it yourself, none of us got through childhood without some weird sex shit, so if the worst you have to deal with is a mommy kink, I’d say that’s a pretty sweet deal. Besides, based on how these things develop, it’d be statistically weird if at least one of us didn’t have a clown kink.”

Eddie smirks. “Who do you think has it?”

“Bill,” Richie replies, no need to think on it.

“Yeah, definitely.”

They laugh together, and Eddie, either in an act of drunkenness or bravery, reaches out to place a hand on Richie’s knee. But then he retracts it, slowly as not to incriminate himself, letting it glide off and hang by his side. Richie can feel his face flushing, his stomach churning. He immediately crosses his legs, his dick starting to take interest.

“So what’s your kink then?” Eddie asks casually while reaching for the bottle.

“I’m gay.”

The words come out fast, both heavy and light at the same time. The nausea spikes, his palms grow moist against his glass. For some reason he wants to snap something in half like an angry toddler. Get over it, he tells himself. It’s not a big fucking deal. You’re a forty-year-old man, you should be over this shit by now. It’s embarrassing, get the fuck over it.

“Does that count as a kink these days?” Eddie asks. If he’s surprised by the news it doesn’t come across. And Richie’s almost disappointed. All that, and this is it?

“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I’m a couple months behind on the culture wars.”

Eddie nods, pouring himself probably half a shot. “Well, that explains some things,” he says, unperturbed.

“Like what?”

“Just… a lot of things.”

Richie doesn’t know how to respond to that, part of him scared to even know what’s going on inside Eddie’s head. He gulps down the rest of his whiskey, beginning to resent the taste. He stares out the window, trying to think of something that will keep the conversation moving. He doesn’t want to go to bed yet. Not for a long time.

“Truth or dare?” Eddie asks.

Richie turns back his way. Guess it’s that time. The point in the night where things start to get existential. Where kids play their little games unaware of how many secrets they’ll acquire throughout their lives, the ones too unsavory to confess at sleepovers.

“Dare,” Richie replies.

Eddie sighs and taps his hand on the table, quiet for maybe twenty seconds as he thinks.

“Show me your phone’s search history.”

Shit, this might be more than Richie bargained for.

“Christ, this’ll be embarrassing,” he says, unlocking his phone and pulling up his history.

“Are you the one with the clown kink after all?”

“Worse.”

He hands his phone over, already regretting it. He watches Eddie’s face for maybe half a second before turning away, his cheeks already warm.

“Wait, so you’ve just been searching your own name looking for mean shit people have been saying about you?” Eddie asks incredulously.

“Keeps me humble,” Richie responds with a shrug.

“‘Richie Tozier bad review,’ ‘Richie Tozier gay,’ ‘Richie Tozier homophobic?’” His voice grows more confused the further he scrolls.

“According to someone on Reddit I’m overcompensating.”

“This is fucked up. You need to blacklist your name or something.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies dispassionately, knowing he’s not going to do it. Or anything useful to help sort out the shitshow that is his brain.

“Okay, I scrolled down to the part where you were searching for the definition of ‘ostensibly.’”

Richie grabs back his phone, humiliated enough for one night.

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Eddie replies, maybe trying to set an example.

Richie immediately knows what he wants to ask.

“You and Mrs. Robinson, who initiated it?”

Eddie’s expression deflates a bit, but not in embarrassment. He honestly just looks sad.

“I guess I did. I don’t know. I invited her back to my place but she kissed me first.”

There’s something in Eddie’s voice, a fondness, despite his effort to sound aloof.

“Were you in love?” Richie asks, not even phrasing it as a joke.

“Truth or dare?” Eddie retaliates.

“Dare,” Richie replies, disappointed, but also smart enough not to press further.

Eddie goes quiet again, thinking.

“Say something you like about yourself.”

Richie scoffs. “What kind of corporate positivity bullshit is that?”

“I don’t know, you keep picking dare. There are only so many things I can make you do that don’t involve licking things.”

Richie rolls his eyes, feeling like he’s back in his aborted attempt at therapy. He stares up at the ceiling, trying to think of some half-baked answer. He cycles through the most mundane details about himself, searching for a positive adjective, something a teacher might write on his report card. He almost lands on several answers, vague descriptors that seem right at first, but he swiftly rejects them when they feel rotten against his tongue. He tries harder, digging deeper, but it doesn’t matter how far he goes, he always bumps against a barrier, like being underwater and hitting the roof of a cave. Like his brain won’t let him get there no matter how hard he wants to.

It’s been a minute now. This is embarrassing. Just say something, anything, it doesn’t have to be true.

“I like… I like that I didn’t run away when I wanted to.”

It’s not the most introspective answer, but at least it technically satisfies the question.

Eddie nods. “I’ll settle for that.”

“Truth or dare?” Riche asks before Eddie can add anything else.

“Truth.”

Richie thinks. There are a million things he wants to ask: things that will swiftly cut through all the red tape. _Do you like me? Are you into me? Do you want to fuck each other’s brains out no strings attached?_ But he’s a pussy, and probably couldn’t face the rejection even if he had the guts to ask.

“Did you have a crush on any of us as a kid?”

It feels like a waste. It’d be stupid to think that all of them didn’t have a crush on Bev at one point or another. Richie’s pretty sure he did too, for a time at least.

“Yes,” Eddie answers candidly, not even lingering over it.

Richie sighs. It feels like a waste of a question, as if there were a quota. As if Eddie wouldn’t tell him anything without this schoolyard framework.

“Truth or dare?” Eddie asks.

“Dare,” he replies, the cycle repeating. He’s not ready yet for whatever Eddie clearly wants to ask him.

“Don’t smoke for one day.”

Richie lets out a short laugh. “One day’s not going to save me.”

“I can make you lick the bathroom floor instead.”

Richie groans. “No, it’s fine. I was going to quit after this pack anyway.” He holds up the dented paper carton that only has three smokes left. He’ll blow through them in the morning then see how long he can last. “Truth or dare?” he asks.

“Truth.”

Richie sighs, starting to get fatigued. Do they really need this crutch to keep the conversation going? And why can’t he simply ask all the things he desperately wants to know?

“Be honest, how good was the sex?”

Eddie glares at him, maybe resenting him for bringing it up again. But then his frown softens, maybe sensing that this is all just filler anyway.

“Honestly, it was the best sex of my life.”

Richie laughs. He honestly wasn’t expecting that. And he’s only a little bit jealous.

“Was it the age gap or the infidelity that did it for you?”

Eddie stares down at his drink. “It was a lot of things.” He knocks back the rest of his whiskey, stifling a cough, shaking his head as a shudder runs through him. “We actually filmed some of it,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

“Shit, seriously? You still have it?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah. I converted the VHS tapes to DVDs. Then MP4s.”

“Shit.” Richie leans back and crosses his arms. “You still watch them?”

“Once in a while. Truth or dare?” he asks quickly, diverting the topic.

Richie’s admittedly disappointed. Things were just starting to get good. The knowledge that Eddie has sex tapes from fifteen years ago stored somewhere within reach definitely isn’t helping the twinge between his legs that’s been steadily growing into an ache.

“Dare,” he replies, even though he knows it’s getting old.

“Christ, I was never good at coming up with these,” Eddie says, obviously getting frustrated. “It was easier when I could just make you eat some gross shit.” He sits there, thinking for a while longer, clearly out of ideas. He hums under his breath, the sound hitting Richie’s ear in a way that makes the hair on his arms stand on end.

“Just say whatever’s on your mind,” Eddie finally says.

It’s the most simple request imaginable, yet Richie can’t find it in him to answer.

_Sometimes I want to die. I don’t think I remember how to be happy. I can’t think about anything for too long because once I start I can’t stop. Mundane details. Just say some mundane details. Remark on the cracks in the ceiling, or how itchy the blankets are. Tell him your favorite Starburst flavor, your favorite sex position, your shoe size, your prescription list, fucking anything._

Like before, it feels like he’s hitting up against a physical barrier, his head amassing more and more damage the harder he pushes.

“It can be anything,” Eddie says . It’s been about a minute. Why can’t he say one fucking thing?

His eyes are getting moist. He brings a hand up to cover them. This is stupid. This is so fucking stupid.

“I really missed you,” he finally says. It’s certainly not the first thing that came into his head, so really he’s a dirty cheater. But it’s better than nothing. And at least it’s the truth.

“Truth or dare?” he asks, his hand still pressed over his eyes.

“Truth,” Eddie replies.

“Did you miss me too?”

Eddie’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah, of course I did.” He reaches out, and again places his hand on Richie’s knee, holding it there this time, squeezing a bit, sending a shudder up Richie’s whole body. Against his better judgment, Richie reaches down to lay his hand on top of Eddie’s, lightly curling his fingers around his knuckles.

They both stare down at their hands, and Richie wants to run his fingers up his wrist to feel his pulse, but that would definitely be too intimate.

“Truth or dare?” Eddie asks.

“Truth.”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

Suddenly Richie’s a teenager again, sitting on the floor in his parents’ basement, the smell of burnt popcorn and sweat-drenched socks filling the insulated air.

“Yeah,” he whispers, both terrified to continue, and relieved that they’re finally wrapping up the foreplay.

Eddie leans forward and Richie meets him halfway. Suddenly they’re kissing, as openly as they can with the state of Eddie’s cheek. It’s been so long since Richie’s kissed someone, he’s not even sure if he remembers how to do it. He reaches around to clutch the back of Eddie’s head, just to give the illusion that he knows what he’s doing. The feeling of being halfway drunk is definitely easing his defenses, inhibiting his shame, suppressing his embarrassment. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It feels nice, and on a night like this, that’s all that matters.

Eddie reaches around to the back of his head as well, tugging at his nape and beginning to kiss along his chin. Richie looks up to the ceiling, focusing on the feel of Eddie’s mouth along his jaw. He’s never really enjoyed being kissed like this, but the thought of Eddie doing it is enough to make him close his eyes.

“Truth or dare?” Richie asks, more as a joke than anything else.

“Dare,” Eddie laughs against his neck.

Richie smiles. He could make him do anything he likes. His mind races with all the things he could suggest. Now that he thinks about it, truth or dare is highly underutilized as a sex game. Why do people stop playing it as soon as they grow up?

“Show me one of the videos you made with your lady friend,” he whispers, intending it to be a joke and nothing more. Which is why he’s surprised when Eddie doesn’t laugh along with him. Instead he goes stiff, and Richie mentally kicks himself for screwing things up.

“Or not. Just teasing,” Richie says, leaning down to kiss Eddie’s neck, hoping he’ll forget about it. He runs his tongue up along his pulse point and kisses right below his ear, thankful when Eddie arches into it like a cat being pet. Richie squeezes his upper thigh, his other hand gripping the back of Eddie’s head and tugging at his short hair. God, he smells nice.

“One second,” Eddie says, gently pulling away.

“What’s up?” Richie asks, worried he did something wrong.

“Nothing, just getting my laptop.”

Richie’s confused for a second, until he remembers the dare he made less than two minutes ago.

“Wait, are you serious? I was just dicking around.”

“A dare’s a dare,” Eddie says in a resigned tone as he walks over to one of his suitcases.

Richie laughs. “We’re not in junior high anymore. I won’t tell the whole school you’re a wuss if you pussy out.”

“Do I look like I’m pussying out?” Eddie asks as he unzips one of the main compartments and reaches inside. “Besides, I’m kind of an exhibitionist.”

“Clearly.” Richie watches him dig around before finally pulling out a black laptop bag. Richie’s honestly surprised that Eddie actually has the footage on hand, although in this day and age there’s no reason why he wouldn’t. Jesus, is he actually going to watch Eddie Kaspbrak’s sex tapes from fifteen years ago? This time last Wednesday he couldn’t even remember this town’s name, and now here he is, about to get laid by his childhood friend while watching his turn of the century homemade porn. Life really is worth living.

Eddie unzips the bag and puts his laptop on the table, opening it and typing in a hilariously long password.

“Don’t look at my desktop,” he says, so Richie obediently looks down at his lap, shielding his eyes from whatever embarrassing insurance secrets Eddie has cluttering up his screen.

“This is the best night of my life,” Richie says, smiling uncontrollably. Eddie’s still searching through his folders; apparently the files are buried so deep he has to mine through several geological eras just to find them.

“It’s really not that interesting,” Eddie remarks, finally clicking on the final folder, tastefully labeled ‘tax records 2013-14.’ There are only four files with various jargon names and no thumbnails. Eddie clicks on the first one, the file expanding to fit the full screen.

Richie is already transfixed, never more excited to watch two people fuck on screen. Not even when he was a kid and secretly rewound the sex scene in Terminator so many times the tape started to glitch out.

The scene on Eddie’s laptop opens to a bedroom. The quality is somewhat grainy, definitely shot on tape. There’s a bed with plain navy sheets, some shelves with books in the background, and heating pipes running along the wall. The camera is fixed on the side of the bed, showcasing a woman sitting against the headboard, naked and smiling with light brown skin and curly black hair that extends just past her shoulders. A few small tattoos run down her outer arm, but the quality is too.poor to make out the designs.

 _“Is it working?”_ she asks, facing the camera.

 _“Yeah, it’s going,”_ Eddie replies, his voice slightly distorted, but still recognizable. A bit higher, a bit more nasal, but unmistakably his.

“Damn, this is vintage,” Richie remarks, feeling like he should be watching this in the ‘70s in a crummy theater with cum staining the seats.

“Yeah, it had its time,” Eddie replies, his voice flat. He’s staring at the screen, his arms crossed, something strange in his expression.

“We don’t have to watch this,” Richie says, unsure how to alleviate Eddie’s obvious discomfort.

“No, I’m good,” he replies, forcing half a smile. “I want to watch it.”

Richie looks at him skeptically for a moment, but his attention is quickly diverted back to the screen once Eddie enters the picture, and suddenly the meta layers begin messing with Richie’s brain. The Eddie on screen is naked, his body slimmer, his face unlined and his hair a bit longer, but besides that he looks about the same.

“You were hot,” Richie remarks, his face growing warm as he watches Eddie’s younger self climb onto the bed.

“And now I’m not?”

Richie smiles. “You grew into your looks.”

From then on Richie can’t peel his eyes away from the screen, mesmerized as this younger, distant version of Eddie leans in to kiss this stranger, who happily reciprocates as she runs her hands down his chest. It’s been a while since Richie’s watched straight porn, but occasionally the mood will strike him. This doesn’t feel like porn though. It feels like someone’s home movie, like seeing a family gather around a Christmas tree or bring home a new puppy. It’s a turn of the century time capsule. Richie can understand why Eddie wanted to preserve these tapes, especially since they already have so little record of their past.

Eddie pushes her hair over her shoulders, plays with her nipples, and kisses down her chest. There’s no sense of performance or roleplaying. It looks like the kind of sex you could reliably look forward to every night. Something simple and routine that leaves no complicated questions. It’s strange to think that the people onscreen are having an affair. That she has a husband and kids home waiting for her. She’s quite beautiful, although the low quality might be doing her some favors, obscuring her features like fog over a bathroom mirror. Her body certainly looks like she’s been pregnant more than once, her hips wide and breasts hanging low. And despite Richie’s obvious hard-on, he can’t say he’s actually horny. He’s fascinated, enthralled even, seeing this window into Eddie’s past in his most intimate state, but he can’t say he’d jerk off to this in his spare time. It’s not his anyway.

He looks over at Eddie, who’s staring at the screen with laser focus. Richie wishes he knew what was going on inside his head. Richie’s aware of the fact that with this one stupid dare he destroyed the mood for the whole evening. Things are weird now. He made them weird.

It goes on for another ten minutes, their bodies growing sweaty and red. The sounds are nice, rhythmic breathing and sporadic moaning. They play around in several positions before settling with Eddie’s back to the headboard as she rides him with impressive technique. She speeds up, then slows down, both of them kissing incrementally as they get closer to the finish line. Richie’s not sure if they come at the same time, but it’s definitely close. Both their faces pinch tight before releasing, their movements slow down, then stall altogether as they hold each other in the high.

They were in love. It’s so obvious it almost makes Richie choke. Whatever it was must be ancient history, but the evidence is certainly incriminating.

The video ends, freezing just as she’s climbing off. Richie and Eddie sit there in silence, the mutual arousal heavy and almost painful. Eddie’s still staring at the screen, hard in his sweatpants, his arms still crossed, with the look of someone who bit off more than he can chew.

“What do you want to do now?” Eddie asks, as if they just finished watching Titanic and need to pick another movie.

“Um…” He needs to do something about the situation between his legs, but initiating sex would feel weird, but going to jerk off in the bathroom would be even weirder. God, why did he get them into this mess? He should have just taken Eddie five feet over to the bed and blown him till his eyes rolled back in his head. How are they supposed to sleep together after all that?

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I wish I had some tapes of my own to make it a double feature.”

Eddie laughs. “You’re a celebrity. You can’t film shit like that anymore.”

“Why not? Who the hell is going to hack the sex tapes of a forty-year-old man who only gets cast as the comic relief?”

“I would,” Eddie says with a shrug. “I’d pay good money for that.”

“If you want, I’ll give it to you for free.”

He tries to manipulate his tone so that the offer can be read as either a joke or a proposition, but he puts so much effort into regulating each word that the full sentence comes out sounding unnatural, as if he translated it from another language.

Eddie raises his eyebrows, obviously trying to parse through that trash fire of a proposal.

“I mean, I’d be down,” Eddie says with a shrug. “I promise I won’t leak it to TMZ.”

“You could probably post it on Pornhub and get more money for it.”

“Would you sue me to get it taken down?”

“Nah, I haven’t had a good scandal in at least two years. I’ve already been arrested and gone to rehab, so a sex tape should complete the trifecta nicely.”

Eddie nods, apparently not surprised in the least by either of those revelations. Richie knows he’s already read his Wikipedia page top to bottom, and all the footnotes as well.

“I mean, you want to?” Eddie asks, his inflection curving up at the end.

Richie thinks on it a moment, trying to reroute some of the blood still in his dick. Is this objectively a terrible idea? Absolutely. But that makes it all the more fun.

A few minutes later Eddie sets up his phone on the table, propping into against the lamp and rearranging a few things to ensure it will stay upright for however long this lasts.

Richie pulls down his sweatpants and takes off his shirt, dropping them to the floor with little care. He catches Eddie checking him out in the corner of his eye, as if they were strangers in a public shower. Richie sits on top of the covers, leaning back against the headboard, watching as Eddie slowly takes off his clothes as well.

Richie’s almost dizzy, maybe from the liquor or from the accompanying dehydration. He’s already seen Eddie naked before, both on the tape and a few times as teenagers, but knowing that he’ll actually get to touch his body is another thing entirely. He has more muscle than he did at twenty-five, and the lamp light is hitting his chest from an angle that defines all the right places.

His dick is fully hard, and Richie wonders how he has the restraint to undress so slowly.

Once all his clothes are on the floor, he reaches down to press the button on his phone to start the video. The small light by the camera flashes, and Richie has to resist the instinct to put on a fake smile and slip into the persona he always wears whenever he’s behind a camera.

The stage fright is still present though. The fear that he’ll mess it up. He wants Eddie to be able to watch this fifteen years from now with only good memories. Even if they’re not together, even if they never get together, he wants Eddie to have something to remember him by.

“You ready?” Eddie asks, sitting on the bed and placing a hand on his leg.

“Yeah.” Richie nods. “Come here.”


End file.
